HIPAA Privacy Policies & Compliance

Our Mission and Values
South Nassau Communities Hospital is committed not only to providing patients with high quality and caring medical services, but also to providing those services pursuant to the highest ethical, business, and legal standards. These high standards must apply to our interactions with everyone with whom we deal. This includes our patients, other health care providers, companies with whom we do business, government entities to whom we report, and the public and private entities from whom reimbursement for services is sought and received. In this regard, all personnel must not only act in compliance with all applicable legal rules and regulations, but also strive to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. While the legal rules are very important, we must hold ourselves up to even higher ethical standards.

Code of Conduct
The Code of Conduct is the central part of the Compliance Program and sets forth the standards of conduct that all personnel are expected to follow. Everyone should adhere both to the spirit and the language of the Code, maintain a high level of integrity in their business conduct and avoid any conduct that could reasonably be expected to reflect adversely upon the integrity or reputation of the Hospital.

Detection and Prevention of Fraud, Waste and Abuse
South Nassau Communities Hospital is committed to complying with the requirements of Section 6032 of the Federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, and preventing and detecting any fraud, waste, or abuse. To this end, South Nassau Communities Hospital maintains a compliance program and strives to educate its work force on fraud and abuse laws, including the importance of submitting accurate claims and reports to the Federal and State governments.

Policy on Gifts
It is the Policy of South Nassau Communities Hospital that personnel may not accept or solicit from a vendor a gift or benefit given as a result of the personnel’s position or association with the Hospital and intended for that individual’s personal use. While offers of gifts, benefits, donations, honoraria, travel expenses or grants serve an important and beneficial function, they may, in some circumstances, violate the federal and state Anti-Kickback Statutes.

Read the full policy here (Acceptance and/or Solicitation of Gifts or Benefits From Vendors)
Read the full policy here (Acceptance of Gifts policy)
HIPAA
As part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), laws have been enacted to ensure a patient’s right to privacy. HIPAA focuses on patient privacy and confidentiality and requires health care providers to protect against release of Protected Health Information (“PHI”) to inappropriate parties.

South Nassau Communities Hospital personnel have access to information about our patients. We have a duty to protect patient health records and the Hospital’s business records from theft, fraud, loss and inappropriate use. Patient information and financial or business information is to be released only according to policy and our staff is trained accordingly.

Joint Notice of Privacy Practices
All patients treated at any of our facilities receive the “Joint Notice of Privacy Practices.” This Notice describes to the patient how the Hospital will be using their PHI. If a patient does not want their PHI used according to the Joint Notice of Privacy Practices, they must submit their request in writing to where the treatment or service occurred.

FairWarning® Monitoring Software
At South Nassau Communities Hospital, patient privacy is paramount. Accordingly, we take extensive measures to ensure that patient privacy and confidentiality is protected, including routine monitoring and the ongoing education of our staff.

To this end, the Hospital has partnered with FairWarning® to implement a monitoring solution which alerts the Hospital if suspicious activity within our electronic information systems is identified.

Contact Information
If you have any questions on concerns related to the Compliance or HIPAA program at South Nassau Communities Hospital, please contact Ann Amato, Compliance Officer and Privacy Official at (516) 632-3040 or compliance@snch.org.

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